Mario Merz

The fourth meeting of the prologue to the inaugural exhibition The End of the World, launched one month before the Grand Opening. An important framework of collaborations which presents some emblematic works from the collection in prestigious institutional centres of the region.

The work of Mario Mertz, La Spirale Appare [The Spiral Appears] (1990), will be on display at the Leonardo da Vinci Museum, located in the newly restored medieval Castello dei Conti Guidi [castle of the Guidi Counts]. The work was created on the occasion of the exhibition at the Pecci Centre entitled Lo Spazio è Curvo o Diritto [Space is Curved or Straight] (1990), as the development of a project conceived twenty years before for the Museum Haus Lange in Krefeld, Germany.

The place
In two locations not far from the historic village of Vinci (Florence), the Leonardo Museum presents one of the largest and most original collections dedicated to the multiple interests of Leonardo the technologist, architect, scientist and, more generally, to the history of Renaissance art.
Crossing the spectacular Piazza dei Guidi, an urban space reconfigured by the artist Mimmo Paladino and inspired by Leonardo's studies, access is provided to the Palazzina Uzielli which houses the sections dedicated construction machines, textile technologies and mechanical watches, with the recent addition of a section on Leonardo’s anatomical studies.
In the Castello dei Conti Guidi, the medieval landmark building of Vinci and the historical site of the collection, machines and models which document Leonardo’s interest in war, architecture and flying machines can be found. Two entire sections are dedicated to optics and the movement of land and water, with particular reference to fluvial navigation.
The route ends with a room located inside of the imposing castle tower, with the display of models of the “geometrical solids”, based on drawings made by Leonardo for the treatise of the mathematician Luca Pacioli, De Divina Proportione (1509).

Prologue - The End of the World
La fine del mondo

A selection of exemplary works of contemporary art from the collection of the Pecci Centre in Prato serves as an introduction and "frame" for The End of the World exhibition, curated by the director Fabio Cavallucci for the reopening to the public of the renovated cultural institution in Prato.

Collected over three decades of artistic activity, their presentation is curated by the conservator of the Centre Stefano Pezzato, the works are on display for the occasion in some of the most prestigious institutional centres in the region.

The six major works coming from the Centro Pecci collection - works by renowned Italian and foreign artists of the second half of the twentieth century - form a diverse yet eloquent sampling of contemporary artistic proposals related to the central theme of the "state of uncertainty which prevails in our world", and are inserted and therefore related to different contexts of human knowledge such as literature review and scientific research, in particular pre-history, zoology, astronomy, physics, geometry and technology.